As adults, we often dismiss the value of playing pretend. As a kid, remember how easy to suddenly teleport to another place and time, as a person with a new identity, to act out roles and responsibilities we had imagined up for ourselves?
I was an eager 23-year-old, freshly graduated from college working and my first real job in a basement cubicle for a fledgling small-town newspaper. My boss played Jimmy Buffet religiously, so I found myself transposed to a margarita infused, laissez-faire resort town whether I was properly slathered in sunscreen or not.
Suddenly, phone rang out like a tsunami alarm and I was brutally interrupted by a repeat disgruntled customer wondering where his freaking newspaper had landed that morning. Today it was too damn close to the road. Yesterday it was too damn wet from the rain. I felt like a half-eaten cheeseburger and I knew this sure wasn’t paradise as I imagined it.
Sitting at my small desk, I shut my eyes. If I could be anyone and go anywhere in this moment, who would I become? Where would I go aside from this god forsaken office?
A dusting of fine sand settled into the corners of my mouth as a swirling curl caught on the rise of my cheekbone. The twang of an untuned piano banging out a hit from the Civil War was accompanied by a cacophony of deep belly laughs and stomping boots. This was Virginia City, Nevada, 1859 and here I was, standing on the street above the bustling boardwalk, looking down into a sea of gun toting miners and madmen.
Like an angel above a grave, I witnessed this time and place as something hauntingly familiar. In fact, I recognized one of the jovial voices on the boardwalk as a friend and lover, Beckwourth. Jim, as his friend’s knew him, was born a slave in Virginia and freed by his father and owner as a teen in Missouri. He set out west as a trapper in his early 20s, and lived for 9 years amongst the Crow Tribe after marrying the chief’s daughter. He had come to California following the Gold Rush and is best known for starting the settlement of Beckwourth, where he ran a trading post as well as for scouting a relatively safe trail across the Sierra’s known as Beckwourth Pass. Jim and I met each other one summer afternoon in his store. Our encounter quickly turned into a private exchange of goods.
At this point, Jim was in his 50s and liked to catch a buzz up in Virginia City drinking, gambling and spitting stories of his escapades. He was a big bullshitter and well received by derelicts alike.
The phone rang, which meant someone angry awaited. I answered with a predictable trepidation.
“Hello, this is Julia from the Olympian. How may I help you?” There was a pause. “Hello?”
A woman finally responded. She told me a rambling 5-minute story about how she hasn’t received her newspaper in days and that she thinks her neighbor is stealing it.
“Do you have a department that deals with challenging situations like this?”
I was the department. “Yes, you called it, mam.”
“Have you gone and talked with your neighbor?”
“No, of course not. I don’t want him to think I am calling him a thief.”
I quickly referenced the computer system that records all successful and unsuccessful deliveries from our drivers.
“I’ve confirmed that your paper has been delivered every day this past week so aside from asking him, the only thing I can think of is having the newspaper placed in a new spot. How does that sound?”
Silence again. Did this woman want me to go talk to the neighbor?
“That’s a good idea. Ok. Let’s try it. Have your people put the paper near my large flower pot with squiggles on it. I’ll let you know how it goes. I just don’t know what I will do if this doesn’t work.”
I had no idea either. “Ok, I will note the change in our system. Have a good day, mam.”
I shut my eyes and pictured Buffet on a beach with an ice cold margarita. No wonder my boss had become such a cheeseburger working here.
Western culture of the 1850s resembled a cornered opossum. Primal, self-preservation took precedence, but beneath the barbarianism of mining, drinking, and fucking, lay an innate innocence. Nothing made man more vulnerable than the unpredictability of the high desert, be it the Zephyr wind that ripped roofs right off houses or sudden blizzard-like conditions that could freeze even though most seasoned explorer in his tracks, literally.
Looking deep into the crevasses of these men’s leathery faces, lurked frightened little boys who had seen and felt too much. Scarcity had created a breeding ground for ample violence. Alcohol helped wash away the thorns of loveless, lawless living.
Jim sensed my presence nearby like a mountain lion. He looked up from the raucous bunch and our eyes met, his from beneath a wide-brimmed hat, and mine, squinting between my unruly curls.
The man in the cubicle next to me looked like he had never been laid. When he walked over to the printer, he mumbled angrily to himself. In fact, I wasn’t sure what his job position was at the paper. He did have one passion however, and that was making tiny little zines. He would work on them for hours, printing off pages and carefully cutting out words and images. These bite size comic books told comedic tales of a make-believe neighborhood of characters. At least I think they were fictional.
The reason I know this is because he would leave them on my desk. Well, they would magically appear when I wasn’t looking. I’d go to the bathroom and there would be a new one sitting on my keyboard.
Months went by, and he never once acknowledged that he was doing this or made eye contact with me. But, one day he left one near my mail basket and the title on the cover read: Look At Me.
I couldn’t tell if Jim was intrigued or dismayed in this moment of connection. He was a hard man to read, and we hadn’t left each other on the best note. An unease arose from my stomach like a phantom settling in my throat.
Without much notice, he left the group of rowdies and walked up the dirt hill in my direction. I stood there firmly, in the stance of a gunslinger at high noon, full of bravado, masking the deep-seated insecurity of what was fated next.
I lifted my eyes from the front of his latest comic, peering into the blackness of my sleeping computer screen. I knew he must be over at his desk, waiting for me to look at him. I was in a pickle. If I turned my head toward his cubicle, then what? If I didn’t, then what? Damn.
Resentment dwelled in the blush of my cheekbones. I hated being cornered, especially by this weirdo at work. But I had to see what the hell was going to happen.
As Jim’s face came closer into clarity, I caught an upward curve in the corners of his mouth.
“Madam Bulette, fancy meeting you on the streets of this hell hole.”
Like a rouge gust of wind, he suddenly wrapped himself into the lace of my shall. Inhaling deep into this precipitous embrace, I imbibed in the flavors of whipped leather, vanilla tobacco, and desert dust. My heart raced like wild horses spooked by thunder.
“You excited to see me, Julia?” He pushed back from my chest so as to observe my unabashed expression.
At times, minutes feel like molasses pouring from a mason jar. But there are also times when one blinks and a year has suddenly passed.
I looked up from my computer, like a poker player calling out a bluff. He wasn’t there. He anywhere in the room. I frantically scoured the space with my eyes as though I had been viscerally duped when most unexpectedly, my boss appeared flashing his bleach-tooth grin before me.
“Julia, I’ve got some great news. You’ve been promoted to the advertising department upstairs. This is your last day here in circulation.”
Wait, what? Wow. Like that, I was done. But what about Mr. Zine? I couldn’t leave without seeing him.
Like a contorted oak tree, Jim shaded me with his anticipation of my response. But I had no words. I could not give him access to my most valuable asset. Besides, love had no place in this den of iniquity. In fact, as licentious as this land was, love remained the ultimate outlaw.
“I don’t know Jim.” I stepped back in resignation.
He lit a cigarette pulled from netherworld of his looming hat. Like a smoking statue, he said nothing in return.
I went to the bathroom and returned to an empty box on my desk ready to be filled with framed vacation photos, favorite pens, and messy folders. I watched the clock. I watched his desk. Clock to desk. Desk to clock. Why did I care if he returned?
Was it that I looked? Or was it that I looked and he wasn’t there?
Like a lover who sneaks out of bed when you’re sleeping, I had fucked myself by gifting the situation my attention. By caring if he was or wasn’t, he had won.
When I looked up, Jim spit on the dirt next to my heeled boot. “You’re just a damn whore, Julia. Never forget that.”
He turned and walked away. I watched him disappear around the corner. A couple of liquored up drunks started wrestling on the boardwalk below, kicking up loose dirt that swirled into the arid sky. My teeth stuck to my gums. Grasping at straws, I reached into my purse for a distraction. There was the bracelet Jim had given me a few years ago. I took it out and looked at it. I had loved it. My hand opened and it fell freely to the ground, sinking slightly into sandy soil. A drink beckoned as did another man’s lips.
I didn’t last long in advertising. I just couldn’t take it seriously. The art of selling, better said, the art of swindling, was best kept to the likes of the used car salesmen.
Before I gave notice, I did a simple Google search out of curiosity for, “Teaching jobs in Reno, NV.” There were 50 or so open positions for people with a degree outside of education. This was my chance to jump ship. I was going to the desert to become somebody’s teacher. To make a paradise that had more depth than shitty party music.
Things were definitely looking up from here. I knew I’d find my way in the desert. And a new story to write about.
